Time &amp; Life Pictures
After taking on Nixon, JFK, George W. Bush, and September 11th, filmmaker Oliver Stone, along with potential star Jamie Foxx, might be DreamWorks' choice to bring Martin Luther King Jr.'s life to the screen, as reported by The Playlist. So far, it's not clear exactly how much or what part of King's life DreamWorks is looking to focus on, but Stone is well known for his long, ambling biopics, particularly of political figures.
Stone doesn't shy away from tough topics. If he's at the helm, he's going to want to tackle some of the more complex issues and potentially make large assumptions and leaps to serve his narrative. The man was able to make a film with some pathos for then-current president Bush, so this certainly won't be a slam piece on one of the great American icons and heroes. But the MLK estate has been very tough on films looking to portray the more sordid aspects of King's story, like his alleged infidelity. And with members of the King family working with DreamWorks and against rival projects (including ones from Paul Greengrass and Lee Daniels) it suggests that this may be a more sanitized vision then Stone is used to. Not only would Stone likely rankle at such demands, but erasing the complexity from MLK makes the whole film kind of pointless. Can we not handle a vision of King that paints him as something other than a martyr?
We remember Spike Lee's Malcolm X as a great film because Lee was able to work with Alex Healy/Malcom X's fantastic book, which was open about the various vices in the activist's past. It didn't hurt that the movie was blessed with Denzel Washington's amazing performance.
Now, Jamie Foxx doesn't really resemble King, but his quiet dignity mixed with deep, deep, anger and pain in last year's Django Unchained was a level of subtlety he hasn't shown since his Oscar-winning turn in Ray back in 2005. But after seeing Foxx's goofy side this summer in White House Down, his striking dissimilarities from King could really derail this film, and it doesn't really make sense why he's the top choice. But clearly DreamWorks is looking for a star, and most of the other bona fide black stars are either too old to play the 39-year-old King, have already played another distinct historical figure, or both.
What's frustrating is that there is so much room for more interpretations of King's life. Richard Nixon, for example, was not only the subject of one of Stone's lengthy films, but also has appeared in documentaries, other narratives, dramas, onstage (in the superb Frost/Nixon, which, by the way, was also turned into an Oscar nominated film), in comedies like Dick, graphic novels, and even an opera. He's been portrayed as a genius, an idiot, a crook, a coward, a fool, a hero, an opportunist, a good president, bad president, good person, and bad person. There's a wealth of creative material all based around or involving his life. Martin Luther King Jr. is a figure as large as Nixon, and like all people, was just as complex, but we rarely get to see a true representation of what that might have been like.
In short, while it's all well and good that filmmakers are interested in bringing MLK to the screen, it might not be possible for a divisive director like Stone and a potentially miscast star like Foxx to make this film a worthy one. And if it is regarded poorly, that might lead his family to become even more protective of his amazing story.
Not to mention, Drunk History did it first.

Footage gathered from the last four superstar-studded Amnesty International concerts and tours have been digitally restored for release on a new 17-hour DVD/CD box set, which will hit the market next month (Nov13). Music historian Martin Lewis, a co-creator and co-producer of the human rights organisation's iconic A Secret Policeman's Ball concerts in the U.K., has painstakingly collected 12 hours of concert footage from two Amnesty shows in Chile (1990) and Paris (1998), the 1986 A Conspiracy Of Hope U.S. tour and 1988 Human Rights Now! world tour, which featured Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel and Sting, for the package. He has also unearthed and shot five hours of bonus material, including Gabriel's never-before-seen tour video and new interviews with the Sledgehammer hitmaker, Sting and Springsteen, among others.
The six-disc DVD box-set and two-disc companion CD, titled RELEASED! The Human Rights Concerts 1986-1998, will be available from 5 November (13) and also include concert footage featuring U2, The Police, Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman and Alanis Morissette.
The release coincides with the 25th anniversary of the six-week, five-continent Human Rights Now! world tour, headlined by Springsteen, Sting, Gabriel, Chapman and Youssou N'Dour
Lewis tells WENN, "Musicians innately understand key components of human rights such as freedom of expression. It's at the heart of what they do.
"The rock music community has been spectacular in its support for Amnesty. These concerts broke new ground in galvanising audiences to become involved. They fused cause and content in an inspirational way. It's been an honour to work with Sting, Bruce, Bono, Peter and the other artists in restoring and producing these concerts for home release."
Sting adds, "Amnesty in my opinion, is probably the most civilised and civilising of human organisations. It uses the writing of letters or the commerce of ideas and opinion to change the world rather than a gun or an army or an air force. And that seems to be very civilised to me. And that seems the only way that we will get positive change in the world. And so Amnesty's a fantastic flagship for that idea. I feel very proud of my association with it. And it's ongoing."
And Gabriel states: "The world is a much better place for knowing that Amnesty's around it. There's still an amazing amount more work that needs to be done... that must be done. But Amnesty International have made an extraordinary start."

The daughter of late screenwriter Frank Petrella is taking her Raging Bull copyright infringement case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Paula Petrella has been locked in a legal dispute with executives at MGM Holdings Inc. since the late 1990s over allegations they illegally based the 1980 Robert De Niro movie on a copyrighted script penned by her father in 1963.
Petrella claims the film bosses have continued to breach her father's copyright by continuing to market the movie for DVD sales distributed by bosses at Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, who have also been named in the suit.
Her arguments have twice been rejected by judges in San Francisco, California, ruling in favour of the studio chiefs, who accused the plaintiff of forfeiting her rights by failing to sue earlier.
However, Petrella petitioned officials at the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case, and on Tuesday (01Oct13), they agreed to take up the dispute.
Frank Petrella died in 1981 - the same year that Raging Bull, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring De Niro as real-life boxer Jake LaMotta, won two Oscars.

FameFlynet
The jig, she is up.
Celebrities are now disturbingly savvy to what fans are getting up to on the internet. The more mainstream fandom culture becomes, the greater the chances are that actors in fandom-bait shows and movies will come into contact with fan fiction, fan art, and, of course, "shipping."
"Shipping," for those not active on the Supernatural Tumblr tag, is taken from the word "relationship" and refers to fans attempting to get two (or more, why not?) characters together through sheer force of will. How do celebrities feel when they find out how, um, passionate their devotees are about their characters romantic destinies? Here are five case studies.
Benedict thinks it's "cool."
There's no shortage of well-read Sherlock superfans, so it isn't surprising that Benedict Cumberbatch told MTV that he's "impressed" with the quality of the work inspired by the show and by the ambiguous friendship between Holmes and Watson.
Inglourious and In flagrante delicto.
Oh No They Didn't caught Inglourious Basterds star Eli Roth tweeting to director Quentin Tarantino about some NC-17-rated writing about his characters. He even gave internet writers a heads up before he did so, so they could add their work to the pile.
Love for Klaine fans
Glee star Chris Colfer is so flattered by the attention his character Kurt receives in fan fic that he shouted out the amateur writers on stage when he accepted his People's Choice Award this year.
Andy Cohen has to make it awkward.
During their appearances on Watch What Happens Live, Andy had Daniel Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes perform dramatic readings of some Harry/Ron and, gulp, Harry/Voldemort romantic interludes. Points to both Harry Potter stars for doing so with a maximum of gusto and a minimum of embarrassment.
Mark Ruffalo supports "Science Bros"!
But perhaps the most satisfying "ship" reaction of them all was Mark Ruffalo's response to "Science Bros," the deceptively innocent nickname for the perceived attraction between Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. Ruffalo told Vulture that it was "awesome," "cute," and that he "endorses it 100%." And the fangirls and boys go wild.
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It's no overstatement to say that Martin Scorsese, whose short list of classics includes Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, is the most celebrated American director that's currently living. Even less of an exaggeration is the fact that 2006's The Departed, the same film that he won him his first, and still only, Academy Award, is mediocre at best. Here's five films that should have easily earned Scorsese an Oscar.
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Taxi Driver, 1976Although nominated for Best Picture, Scorsese was denied a directing nod for his stark depiction of a mentally troubled war vet turned unexpected hero. John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky, would win that year's award for Best Director.
Raging Bull, 1980Robert De Niro took home the Best Actor Oscar for his explosive portrayal of boxer Jake LaMotta, while simultaneously earning some of the best reviews of his career. Scorsese, however, lost that year to Robert Redford, who made his directorial debut with the family drama, Ordinary People.
GoodFellas, 1990The very film that redefined the gangster drama was nominated for six Academy Awards, including nods for Best Picture and Best Director. However, the Kevin Costner-directed western, Dances with Wolves, would go on to win both categories.
Casino, 1995Although arguably a better film than Goodfellas, Scorsese's loose history of Las Vegas's crime-addled heyday netted only a single Oscar nod at that year's Academy Awards, which went to Sharon Stone. The film, however, ranks 5th in the total number of F-bombs dropped.
Bringing Out the Dead, 1999An overlooked classic in the Scorsese catalogue, and still one of Nicolas Cage's finest performances. It just happened to be released during probably the last great year for movies (see Eyes Wide Shut, Being John Malkovich, Fight Club, Boys Don’t Cry, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, etc.).
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After Dark Films
It seems a bit odd to take on a movie review of Courtney Solomon's Getaway, as only in the loosest terms is Getaway actually a movie. We begin without questions — other than a vague and frustrating "What the hell is going on?" — and end without answers, watching Ethan Hawke drive his car into things (and people) for the hour and a half in between. We learn very little along the way, probed to engage in the mystery of the journey. But we don't, because there's no reason to.
There's not a single reason to wonder about any of the things that happen to Hawke's former racecar driver/reformed criminal — forced to carry out a series of felonious commands by a mysterious stranger who is holding his wife hostage — because there doesn't seem to be a single ounce of thought poured into him beyond what he see. We learn, via exposition delivered by him to gun-toting computer whiz Selena Gomez, that he "did some bad things" before meeting the love of his life and deciding to put that all behind him. Then, we stop learning. We stop thinking. We start crashing into police cars and Christmas trees and power plants.
Why is Selena Gomez along for the ride? Well, the beginnings of her involvement are defensible: Hawke is carrying out his slew of vehicular crimes in a stolen car. It's her car. And she's on a rampage to get it back. But unaware of what she's getting herself into, Gomez confronts an idling Hawke with a gun, is yanked into the automobile, and forced to sit shotgun while the rest of the driver's "assignments" are carried out. But her willingness to stick by Hawke after hearing his story is ludicrous. Their immediate bickering falls closer to catty sexual tension than it does to genuine derision and fear (you know, the sort of feelings you'd have for someone who held you up or forced you into accessorizing a buffet of life-threatening crimes).
After Dark Films
The "gradual" reversal of their relationship is treated like something we should root for. But with so little meat packed into either character, the interwoven scenes of Hawke and Gomez warming up to each other and becoming a team in the quest to save the former's wife serve more than anything else as a breather from all the grotesque, impatient, deliberately unappealing scenes of city wreckage.
And as far as consolidating the mystery, the film isn't interested in that either, as evidenced by its final moments. Instead of pressing focus on the answers to whatever questions we may have, the movie's ultimate reveal is so weak, unsubstantial, and entirely disconnected to the story entirely, that it seems almost offensive to whatever semblance of a film might exist here to go out on this note. Offensive to the idea of film and story in general, as a matter of fact. But Getaway isn't concerned with these notions. Not with story, character, logic, or humanity. It just wants to show us a bunch of car crashes and explosions. So you'd think it might have at least made those look a little better.
1/5
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James Franco submitted to that most ego-deflating of Hollywood rituals last night: A Comedy Central Roast. His This Is the End pals Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Aziz Ansari, along with Sarah Silverman, Nick Kroll, and professional roaster Jeff Ross, convened in Los Angeles to make fun of Franco's ambiguous sexuality, roster of bad movies, pretentious art projects, and, of course, his legendarily awful 2011 co-hosting of the Oscars. That last point is particularly interesting because, though many of these topics were already mined for comedy in This Is the End, the Oscars weren't, almost as if it was still too sore a point. Obviously, that was not the case. Check out our picks for the funniest 12 Jokes of the Night below.
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1. Seth Rogen: "Judd Apatow was going to direct this roast, but Comedy Central didn’t want it to be 40 minutes too long.”
2. Rogen: “Franco, you look like you’re asleep. Did you just read a James Franco book? In all seriousness, he is a very hardworking actor. He once told me he worked for 36 hours straight, which I don’t believe, the straight part, obviously.”
3. Rogen: “James has acted alongside some amazing actors — Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones. He once played opposite an unruly chimp with giant teeth but it was worth it because Eat, Pray, Love turned out awesome. What? Is she here? She’s not here. Like she f–king watches this bulls–t.
4. Nick Kroll: “James Franco is truly our generation’s James Dean. So handsome that you forget he’s only been in two good movies. Dean, of course, died at the tender age of 24 sparing himself the embarrassment of writing self-indulgent short stories and getting roasted by a bunch of jealous Jew monsters.
5. Kroll: “If at any point James fully opens his eyes tonight, there will be six more weeks of summer.”
6. Jonah Hill: “He recently got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is incredible because now critics and homeless people can s–t on him all the time.”
7. Sarah Silverman: “Jonah actually gained 50 pounds for his role in the new Martin Scorsese film because the producers wanted the character to be a Jonah Hill type. But seriously you’ve had such a body transformation in the past couple of years. You have come a long way from just being Sonny and Cher’s daughter.”
8. Aziz Ansari: “I saw Jeff Ross at a comedy club the other night. A woman comes up to him and goes, ‘Hey, if you’re who I think you are, I’m definitely sleeping with you tonight.’ And he goes, ‘Hell yeah I’m Jeff Ross.’ And she goes, ‘Oops sorry. I thought you were the main orc from The Lord of The Rings.”
9. Ansari: “So many gay jokes tonight about Franco. Apparently if you’re clean, well dressed and mildly cultured, you’re super gay now. Is that why the rest of you guys are so aggressively fat and dirty? You think if you read one book and take a shower, dicks are going to just fly into your face.”
10. James Franco: “I agreed to do this roast because I wanted to do something I’ve never done before — something that has zero artistic value, something nobody will remember three months from now, something that’s offensive, homophobic and stars horrifically untalented people and something that’s only a big deal to a handful of teenage stoners on Twitter. You might say, ‘James, didn’t you just describe Your Highness? I wouldn’t know I didn’t see Your Highness.”
BONUS
Franco: “The joke’s on all of you. This is not a roast. This is my greatest most elaborate art installation ever. I’m not the real guest of honor, these aren’t real comedians and we’re not even on a real network. What you’ve seen tonight was my brilliant opus to sequester an artistic visionary and subject him to the mindless incoherent trashings of talentless abnormalities. I call it Genius Unscathed and this is my masterpiece”
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There is something to be said for ambition. The sort of unabashed, no holds barred, balls to the wall energy that makes anything seem like a good idea. Though you'll cock your head at the results of this kind of caution-to-the-wind bravado, the all-inclusive "sure, why not?" attitude, you can't help but crack a smile for the purveyors of this spirit: the first grader who stuffs his class diorama with every figurine and pipe cleaner machination he can muster, the bird who lines its nest with candy wrappers and Fedex receipts, or the people who made the Mortal Instruments movie. They, quite possibly, are the mightiest knights of them all.
You don't have to wait too long for the crazy to kick up in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. We open on the most spacious apartment in the history of Brooklyn, where young Lily Collins is beginning to see mysterious symbols popping up everywhere, only the first sign of the fantastical journey set to take form. Mother Lena Headey, aided by her platonic friend Aidan Turner, plays the Dursley card and takes effort to deter any exploration of the ominous elements to befall her daughter. But as with every spunky mystic around her age, Collins cannot be restrained. She follows her heart and embarks on a quest, aided by her platonic friend Robert Sheehan, through every single conceivable element of modern fantasy.
The Harry Potter similarities continue when Collins is ushered into a demonic otherworld via New York City's equivalent of a murky train platform (an ecstasy-laden dance club), guided by New York City's equivalent of a haggard woodland giant (a perpetually shirtless goth ghost, played by Jamie Campbell Bower). Working her way up from glowing-eyed club druggers and pieces of living jewelry to demons, werewolves, witches, vampires, and interdimensional portals — tossed in one by one as we gradually abandon all devotion to any margins of logic — Collins engages in an adventure that seems entirely open to all possibilities. Or at least all possibilities that have proven vigilant at the box office in the past four years.
Sony Pictures
And as she engages, so do we. Not exactly in the way you engage with Harry Potter... more in the way you engage with the Harry Potter ride at Islands of Adventure. You'll embrace the likable and talented Collins just enough to forge the sort of relationship you want with a fantasy heroine. You'll find yourself rooting one way or the other in the love triangle between her, the Shirtless Shadowhunter (Campbell Bower), and her lovestruck pal Simon (Sheehan). You won't have to work too hard to understand most of the mystical facets tossed your way: you know the rules of vampires (no sunlight), of werewolves (they're dudes sometimes), of demons (they're bad). And when it does get confusing, like when teleportation bubbles and portal beams from the afterlife and curses and tarot cards and dreadlocks are tossed into the equation, you have the luxury of abandoning the puzzle. You're not asked to understand anything, just to accept it all.
Accept that all this madness can, does, and should occur within the malleable reality occupied by Collins and her ghastly friends. When it is revealed that classical musicians had a hand in these supernatural forays, accept it. When you're taken from wizards' palaces to Willy Wonkian wonderlands to the destitute streets of a haunted Manhattan post 3 AM, accept it. When genealogical revelations tie everything together in a bow so strange as to put the peculiarity of bat invasions, corpse armies, glowing hieroglyph tattoos, and memory erasing club promoters, accept it. If you can do all that, you'll find a comical thrill ride in this two hours of steadily accelerating madness, this Mulligan Stew of YA fiction. But if you're too hung up on logic, rules, world building, or any semblance of pacing, stick with Potter — Mortal Instruments is for the most adamant "sure, why not?"-ers only.
4/5
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American Hustle, The Wolf Of Wall Street and August: Osage County have been named the early frontrunners for next year's (14) Best Picture Oscar by America's top movie critics. Respected experts like Thom Geier, Tariq Khan, Peter Travers and Thelma Adams have offered up their opinions on the favourites in awards news website GoldDerby.com's first Oscars countdown odds of the year.
David O. Russell's 1970s period film American Hustle leads the way with 9/2 odds, closely followed by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio's latest collaboration, The Wolf of Wall Street.
Meryl Streep's latest August: Osage County comes in third, while the Coen Brothers' folk music film Inside Llewyn Davis and George Clooney and Matt Damon's The Monuments Men also make the top five.
Russell is the early favourite for the Best Director award, while Robert Redford leads the way in the Best Actor category for his high seas drama All is Lost, and Cate Blanchett is the clear leader in the Best Actress stakes for her portrayal as "a tarnished trophy wife" in Woody Allen's new drama Blue Jasmine.
The Oscar nominations will be announced in January (14) and the awards ceremony will be hosted by comedienne Ellen DeGeneres in Hollywood on 2 March (14).

Hollywood legend Robert De Niro turned 70 in style over the weekend (17-18Aug13) by partying with stars including his director friend Martin Scorsese, rocker Keith Richards, and screen idol Leonardo DiCaprio. The double Oscar winner reached the milestone on Saturday (17Aug13) and he marked the occasion by inviting some of his A-list pals to an afternoon bash at his country home in New York state.
Rolling Stones star Richards and Titanic actor DiCaprio joined other celebrity guests including Samuel L. Jackson, Bradley Cooper, and Sean Penn at the estate in New Paltz.
They were entertained by live music from rocker Lenny Kravitz and tucked in to a feast provided by upmarket restaurant Nobu, and De Niro was also shown specially-recorded birthday video messages from Kirk Douglas and his actor son Michael, and Robin Williams, according to the New York Daily News.